I know that I haven't posted in for-ever. While surfing other's blogs for Christmas lists this week, I realized that people who live in Brooklyn write great design and lifestyle orientated blogs, and that since leaving BK, my blog has been neglected.
I reject the hypothesis that my negligence has been caused by my relocation to Houston. Marriage was not a big contributing factor, either, probably. It seems that there is just less free time now that I work a full 40 hours a week and spend the rest of my time either sleeping or playing with Lady Bird. That dog loves to cuddle and to play. As Frank puts it, "Is there a more perfect dog anywhere!"
A few weeks ago, I was walking around the block in Montrose. There was a man standing waist deep in an apartment complex's dumpster. As I watched to see what he was finding, he said to me, "One man's trash is another man's treasure. That's the analogy."
That is not an analogy. It is an idiom or a proverb. An analogy involves at least two different relationships. With this man standing in a dumpster and all, it didn't seem like the time for a lesson on literary techniques. Perhaps he would have enjoyed this gem of knowledge, but who knows!
However, I would like to start using that situation as an analogy. A dumpster diver is to a dumpster as I am to a Taylor Swift album? Hey, maybe I'll find something in there that's I think is really great. A dumpster diver is to a baby stroller as a suburban mom is to anything purchased at the Container Store. Its all just more garbage to hold her other garbage. So maybe these aren't quite there yet, but I'll keep working.
This shouldn't give the impression that I am not totally impressed by dumpster divers. In fact, dumpster materialism is the kind of materialism I most respect. There is neat stuff in dumpsters. If I had more of an entrepreneurial streak in me, I would totally partner with that diver, buying raw goods to be "upcycled" and sold for triple digits on etsy. We could make millions! Or maybe just enough to feel like millionaries.
A dumpster diver is to a dumpster as bored women are to etsy.
As said in Home for the Holidays, we just have too much stuff. We have become like human cholesteral. So, as you shop to give and recieve on this Black Friday, take some time to consider how much of your boody will end up in a dumpster.
26 November 2010
05 May 2010
Katie takes a sick day
Yesterday I woke up and felt bad: really bad. My shoulder had been spasming for over a week and the entire right side of my face hurt. I've been fighting a cold for two weeks and my throat was raw. And I my body ached.
However, it was my day off work and I had things to do. First, I attempted to workout. I got on the exercise bike and just peddled without actually turing on the resistance and that made me feel like I might fall over.
I decided to call it a morning and watch some tv on the couch. When the tv came on it was the fourth hour of the Today Show with Kathy Lee Gifford and Hoda Whatever. These women are nuts. There is a great SNL parody here which really isn't that much more extreme than the show. KLG was holding this little Bichon Fres up against her face and screaming about terrorists. It was obnoxious. This is how I knew I was really sick: it was more than I could do to decide how to turn the channel. I just stared at these nutty women screaming at each other for half an hour.
Finally, I felt good enough to stream some back episodes of Chuck. I'm all caught up. I took a couple alieve and got in the hottub to cook out my virus and my shoulder. Then, I took a nap.
I haven't been blogging much because I am working two jobs and taking a class. Just because Tuesdays are my days off doesn't mean I don't work. I had to tutor in the evening. The first kid didn't have much work and even though he had blocked out an hour and a half sent me home after twenty minutes.
This left me with about an hour and a half to drive from the Villages of Memorial, a community of large houses on large lots, to Bellaire, a community of large houses on small lots. Driving south on Chimney Rock, I decided to stop at a Starbucks and study a little. But my neck was really killing me. I called my sister to see if she knew of any good spas on the west side. Yes, this was ridiculous, but its already been disclosed that my judgment was impared. As per usual for the women in my family, she didn't answer her phone.
I called Frank, but hung up before he could answer. I didn't want to admit how nutty I was feeling. Just as he was calling me back, I drove by a Spa on Westeimer. So, for those of you not native Houstonians, Westeimer is a street that runs east/west with bars and clubs and drag racing on the western side, and tatoo parlors and bars on the east side, and a large, fancy shopping mall in the middle. So I was sort of near the mall with its shops aimed at the affluent consumer to the north and south, but as I entered the Spa, the thought occured to me that maybe I wasn't close enough.
I looked around. There was sparce entrance and prices listed on the wall. There was a harsh looking man sitting behind a desk. Was this really a brothel? The hours posted were 10 am to 10 pm. Is that a little late for a massage? Well, what if you work 60 hours a week, when else would you get a massage?
But I was already in the door, and my shoulder was causing me a great deal of pain. I ordered a massage and the gaurd made me pay upfront. This cause anxiety because: 1) Nice spas let you pay after your massage, this is shady and 2) I had already paid, I was committed.
Another man led me to a room and a friendly woman came in to give me a sheet. There wasn't a massage table but a palet on a raised platform. This made me think brothel, but this is also how Shiastu is often performed. Shiatsu is a kind of massage, not a happy ending.
So what happened next? I considered leaving but also realized that in my paranoia about massage parlors I was becoming my mother. (There is a whore house near her that advertises massages. Therefore, she worries about it all the time and told me aunt from wholesome Green Bay not to buy my aunt from insulated The Woodlands a spa gift card over the internet. Now, of course we laughed because while massage gift cards seem lucrative, who would buy a gift card to a whore house?) I went ahead a took off my clothes and got under the sheet. And the friendly looking lady gave me an awesome massage. She certainly knew her anatomy. While I was getting my shoulders pummeled into submission I considered whether or not this massuse was also a lady of the night and how did I fell about being touched. Given the way she was working my shoulders, I didn't really mind. I might have been a little defensive when she asked if I wanted a full body massage or just the upper body. I believe I squeek-yelled "Only my upper body!"
In conculsion, I feel way better today. My back is sore but the spasming has stopped and I'm considering going back there for a full hour next time. Also, to my releif there was no attempt at a "full release" although she did cop a little feel of side-boob.
26 April 2010
Comings and Goings
I have always looked forward to spring, and the end of the school year. All winter, when I was a high school teacher, I would count down the days until I was done teaching.
Then, spring would come and the school year would start to wind down and teaching would be less stressful. In the last few weeks, I would give a final and then basically come to work to baby sit. About this point, I would spend some time with my students, relaxing and I would realize that they were much cooler than they had acted all year. Some of this is because math brings out the worst in many people and some is just how rapidly adolescence mature, huge personality growth over a single year. So, even though I was happy to have a vacation, I would suddenly realize that I would miss these kids.
Now that I am tutoring privately and working with mentally ill young adults, I have found my interactions with my students/clients to be much more enjoyable. It turns out that while I love math I don't really love disciplining large classes of kids. I haven't been counting down the days; I've just been enjoying my job.
Today one of the residents at the co-op moved on to a fancier residential program. He barely spoke to me over the three weeks he came to my yoga and art classes. He was very nice and polite when he did talk, he just seemed to be in a cloud of medications. Once, he asked me to take him to lunch because he couldn't leave campus without staff. We had a nice lunch at Kraftsmen. Again, he didn't say much.
He came up to me today to say goodbye. He thanked me for taking him to lunch that one time. On man! That hit me a lot harder than I would have thought. It was so touching, this expression of gratitude and affection from someone who doesn't interact very openly. I'm going to miss him.
Then, I learned that one of my favorite tutorees has decided that she is doing very well in math and doesn't need any more help. She is right, and I'm surprised that she continued to be tutored for as long as she did. She is a bright girl who caught up very fast. But stilll, I am really going to miss her. She is a neat kid that I spent two hours a week with for the past few months.
One of the meditations that I do calls out to the, like, eight names of god. It starts out with The Creater, The Destroyer... It isn't in English and I have forgotten the rest. It took me a while to embrace "the destroyer." But it was explained to me that we need to destroy old patterns to make next ones. You need to leave the past to enter the future.
As I say goodbye to people I like, and will probably see again, I'm a little sad. In the movie Stand by Me, there is a quote at the end that, "friends come in and out of our lives like little slips of paper."
Then, spring would come and the school year would start to wind down and teaching would be less stressful. In the last few weeks, I would give a final and then basically come to work to baby sit. About this point, I would spend some time with my students, relaxing and I would realize that they were much cooler than they had acted all year. Some of this is because math brings out the worst in many people and some is just how rapidly adolescence mature, huge personality growth over a single year. So, even though I was happy to have a vacation, I would suddenly realize that I would miss these kids.
Now that I am tutoring privately and working with mentally ill young adults, I have found my interactions with my students/clients to be much more enjoyable. It turns out that while I love math I don't really love disciplining large classes of kids. I haven't been counting down the days; I've just been enjoying my job.
Today one of the residents at the co-op moved on to a fancier residential program. He barely spoke to me over the three weeks he came to my yoga and art classes. He was very nice and polite when he did talk, he just seemed to be in a cloud of medications. Once, he asked me to take him to lunch because he couldn't leave campus without staff. We had a nice lunch at Kraftsmen. Again, he didn't say much.
He came up to me today to say goodbye. He thanked me for taking him to lunch that one time. On man! That hit me a lot harder than I would have thought. It was so touching, this expression of gratitude and affection from someone who doesn't interact very openly. I'm going to miss him.
Then, I learned that one of my favorite tutorees has decided that she is doing very well in math and doesn't need any more help. She is right, and I'm surprised that she continued to be tutored for as long as she did. She is a bright girl who caught up very fast. But stilll, I am really going to miss her. She is a neat kid that I spent two hours a week with for the past few months.
One of the meditations that I do calls out to the, like, eight names of god. It starts out with The Creater, The Destroyer... It isn't in English and I have forgotten the rest. It took me a while to embrace "the destroyer." But it was explained to me that we need to destroy old patterns to make next ones. You need to leave the past to enter the future.
As I say goodbye to people I like, and will probably see again, I'm a little sad. In the movie Stand by Me, there is a quote at the end that, "friends come in and out of our lives like little slips of paper."
11 March 2010
Spring is Springing
I love Spring.
It is sunny skys here with temperatures in the 70s. Of course, it still is Houston, so the humidity is hovering at 90%. But who cares! After a long, cold winter I am just so glad to see the sun.
Last weekend I planted tomates. Growing tomatoes is something that I've attempted in the past. Bugs attacked and I was over zealous with my soap-and-baking soda-organic-home-gardening insecticide. The plants may have recovered if I hadn't then gone on vacation and left them for 10 days without water in the arid Los Angeles sunshine.
So, this year I did two things differently. First, I went to a local plants dealer specialist instead of buying my plants at Home Depot. The tomato guy told me that I could use the one gallon pots until the ground was warm enough to put the plants directly in the yard. I thought about this, but when I dug into the muddy clay that is Houston soil I realized why people go to the trouble of putting in raised beds. I am just putting the plants into 20 gallon pots. The tomated guy seemed to think that a late spring leading into a hot summer might prevent good ground growing anyway. Second, I actually bought a spray bottle so if I do have to do some insect prevention I will mist the plants instead of drown them.
The plants are all set up in a corner of the courtyard. None of the community cats seem to be interested so that's a good sign. They look great and my hands look ragged. Since I'm a working girl again, I'm treating myself to a little welcome spring mani pedi this weekend. So sandals weather here I come!
It is sunny skys here with temperatures in the 70s. Of course, it still is Houston, so the humidity is hovering at 90%. But who cares! After a long, cold winter I am just so glad to see the sun.
Last weekend I planted tomates. Growing tomatoes is something that I've attempted in the past. Bugs attacked and I was over zealous with my soap-and-baking soda-organic-home-gardening insecticide. The plants may have recovered if I hadn't then gone on vacation and left them for 10 days without water in the arid Los Angeles sunshine.
So, this year I did two things differently. First, I went to a local plants dealer specialist instead of buying my plants at Home Depot. The tomato guy told me that I could use the one gallon pots until the ground was warm enough to put the plants directly in the yard. I thought about this, but when I dug into the muddy clay that is Houston soil I realized why people go to the trouble of putting in raised beds. I am just putting the plants into 20 gallon pots. The tomated guy seemed to think that a late spring leading into a hot summer might prevent good ground growing anyway. Second, I actually bought a spray bottle so if I do have to do some insect prevention I will mist the plants instead of drown them.
The plants are all set up in a corner of the courtyard. None of the community cats seem to be interested so that's a good sign. They look great and my hands look ragged. Since I'm a working girl again, I'm treating myself to a little welcome spring mani pedi this weekend. So sandals weather here I come!
02 February 2010
On February
Generally, my experience with this time of year is that I find myself crying for no particular reason and then I remember that it is February, the most dreadful month. It's gray and cold; Christmas is a distant memory that you only think of when the credit card bill arrives, and summer is just so far away. Even the spring forward of day light savings is just so far away.
As my father puts it, February is the worst month and that's why they made it the shortest. Every once in a while there's a leap year just to remind us how much worse it could be.
Yesterday, I woke up at 12:05 am (February 1st) sweating all over. I went to the bathroom and threw up for about half an hour. Then, I got back into bed and was just too tired to get up and eat the crackers I was craving.
I slept until 8:05 and the day just got worse from there.
So, here's to you February. You didn't pull any punches this year.
There's 26 more days left, and I am steeling myself for what might be coming. You may have gotten off the first blow, February, but I'm a contender. You haven't beaten me yet.
As my father puts it, February is the worst month and that's why they made it the shortest. Every once in a while there's a leap year just to remind us how much worse it could be.
Yesterday, I woke up at 12:05 am (February 1st) sweating all over. I went to the bathroom and threw up for about half an hour. Then, I got back into bed and was just too tired to get up and eat the crackers I was craving.
I slept until 8:05 and the day just got worse from there.
So, here's to you February. You didn't pull any punches this year.
There's 26 more days left, and I am steeling myself for what might be coming. You may have gotten off the first blow, February, but I'm a contender. You haven't beaten me yet.
21 January 2010
Dogs love Peanut Butter!
Last night I opened the Peanut Butter Fudge Frank's mom had made for us and Lady Bird freaked out. Frank was like, "Yeah, she loves peanut butter. She freaks out every time I open a jar." I guess I didn't know that because I only eat almond butter and cashew butter. (Yes, my dog is more a lady of the people than me.)
She was so excited about the pb fudge that I made her a special batch of pb dog biscuits. Hey, I love to bake and its not like I need to eat a whole batch of cookies. I'm doing my best to obscure the baked goods Frank's mother sends us home with.
She was so excited about the pb fudge that I made her a special batch of pb dog biscuits. Hey, I love to bake and its not like I need to eat a whole batch of cookies. I'm doing my best to obscure the baked goods Frank's mother sends us home with.
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20 January 2010
On Husbands
Tuesday was my first day of school. There are few people out there that have had as many first day's of school as I have. As a child they were a mix of anxiety, anticipation, and sadness. Now I am just so glad to be going back to school. I love school
It was a typical first day of school. The weather in Houston warmed up to the high, humid 70's and this was a great reprieve from the hard freeze we just had. (I guess Houston's weather may be another entry all together.) One class looks great and the other was a bit painful. On the way out a kid behind me asked, "Does anyone else teach this?" to which his friend replied, "Yeah, but he's just as bad." I guess I had been in the good section and then the professor died. A girl next to me said, "We just missed it by a semester." I'm hopeful that the current professor will recover from having a class dropped in her lap at the last minute.
Now, U of H is a big commuter campus. There are lots of parking lots and a parking pass may be more important than your student ID in getting you in to places. Schools like Columbia and NYU won't even let you in the building without a student ID. I haven't even taken the time to have my ID for U of H made yet. My parking pass, however, I ordered as soon as my schedule was confirmed. It was supposed to come in the mail, and everyday it didn't come made me more and more worried. I thought that it would arrive over the weekend.
Before I was married but after I moved away from my parents, I knew that if my dad was calling me on the phone it meant that my mom was out of town. Of course we would talk other times, but after my mom had handed him the phone. Once he was left alone for a few hours he would get bored and lonely and call my sister and me.
Now that I am married, I know that if my dad is calling it is to ask, "Is Frank there?" If he was calling to ask Frank to a ballgame or some other kind of fun male bonding this might make me jealous, but he is calling to ask Frank if he wants to help him fix his computer or stereo or whatever, the kind of male bonding I'm glad to have dodged.
This past weekend my mom and I took a trip to Marfa, TX, and it was awesome, but a different story. My sister also took advantage of the long weekend and visited a friend. Before she left, she gave Frank some sage advice, "You should get my dad to take you out to dinner. Whenever my mom leaves I always get a good dinner, but I won't be here so you should have Man's night."
I heard that Man's night was a success and I was glad to hear that while they went to a restaurant my mother won't go to, everyone stayed out of trouble.
When I got back I asked Frank if he had seen my parking tag, because I was really starting to worry. He said that a whole lot of mail had come for me from U of H, but that he couldn't find Saturday's mail. If you've seen his "office" this doesn't come as a surprise. I asked him to look for it.
Tuesday arrived and my parking tag still hadn't. Frank wasn't looking as hard for Saturday's mail as he should have been, so I made him drive me to school and pick me up. What else was I going to do! I couldn't park.
Tuesday night I started going through the mail from that day and shredding the junk. We have a backlog of stuff to be shredded so I dug into that, and what did I find but my parking tag. It was in an envelope that had been torn in half and it appeared to have been partially eaten.
The mail is delivered through the door and falls on the floor. Frank saw the mail fall on Saturday and never picked it up. The dog picked it up and chewed through as much as she could. Frank then found the shredded mail and assumed that it was garbage and put it in the shred pile.
Now, we don't leave the puppy outside of the crate when we leave the house. So Frank saw the mail on the floor, left it there and then didn't watch the puppy closely enough to realize she was eating it while he was home. When I found the parking pass I was pretty incredulous. I was glad that I was the only one who bothered to shred anything. Much like I am the only one who bothers to pick mail up off of the ground or watch the puppy. I sort of feel like in this story Frank is a husband from a sitcom.
I guess it is nothing a little duct tape can't fix.
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